Singapore in 2 days

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia


Though both of our colds are getting better, it still means we don’t want to get up in the morning. About 8:30 Ed said I could put some light into the room and so I opened our drapes to a bright day. Today was “on deck for the cure” but obviously we didn’t do our part by attending and participating. When I went out onto the patio, the heat and humidity were smothering.
I zipped by the displays in the atrium as they were having (once again) a holiday store at sea! Last Chance. Nothing spoke to me and I continued on to the Cabaret Lounge where I did the basic internet stuff for the day.
Port Talk: Singapore
We have always enjoyed Singapore but we learned more about this interesting city/state from this lecture. The speaker was in the RAF stationed here for years before he went to work for British Airways (thus his intimate knowledge of Asia). Singapore (Singa pura: Lion city) greets ships with a merlion that often is spouting a brisk fountain. You don’t mess around here either or you’ll find yourself with a hefty fine or caning.
We skipped the talk immediately following: Cultural anthropology: Malaysia and Brunei are Mecca for SCUBA and skin divers.
Trivia
We were no threat to the team that won today but we had fun trying to figure out which one of us had the correct “guess” (because this is an expected experience each time we have trivia). The husband of one of our folks today was on the winning team and we really razed him as he walked by flashing the “shitty piece of green paper.”
Lunch: nothing extraordinary. We were killing some time until our tour time.
Today’s tour: City Tour
As we left the gangway, the most beautiful young women in the most stunning regalia festooned each of us with a beaded necklace. There was a local band playing their music in the background.
We were speechless when we saw the bus. Absolutely the nicest I’ve ever been on. So much leg room we thought we were dreaming. A net to stash your stuff; a hook for your bag; a handle to help you maneuver around the seat. Our guide and driver both look much too young to be doing this work. And there were 6 busses of us on this tour but it was done in such a way that it wasn’t a pathetic elephant walk through all the sites.
We drove past the moat protected City Mosque which is a modern, huge (it will hold 2000 worshipers), and beautiful building. Our first stop was a building which is quite extraordinary. It has a central pillar and all the floors are around it. On the 18th floor, there is a revolving restaurant with the remaining floors of the 72 floors of largely businesses above it.
The State Mosque was our next stop for a photo op. The dome is partially covered with real gold. Like all the mosques here , it is large, modern, and very peaceful and inviting. Next we travelled to the Heritage outdoor museum and walked and climbed into the bamboo structures the natives used to live in. A very few far back in the jungle still do. I kept expecting the flooring to give way underneath us; it did not feel very secure and you could see through the substantial cracks. Some of the folks tried the internal trampoline but I kept expecting one of those heavy men to fall right through the bamboo flooring on it. We were again introduced to the squat toilets with no flush mechanism and no paper. Needless to say we were lucky to have water to wash our hands but no soap and no paper or dryer. And it was so humid that it was forever before your hands dried.
The museum was on these grounds as well in a large building created to mimic the long huts of the natives. It had a very sterile, bland quality and I stayed only long enough to circumnavigate the full whale skeleton. From there I went to the mericiful air conditioned souvenir shop where I picked up some inexpensive doo dads. And then the trek back to the air condiitoning on the bus.
Our final stop was at a local market. We believed it to be a handicraft market but it qualified as an enormous local fish market with tiny stalls where folks were preparing every imaginable food for on site consumption on not very appetizing looking tables. Ed was lingering over some lobsters, clearly considering buying some. I told him if he did that, I wasn’t going to help him at all and neither would Nikolas (the ship’s doctor). To his credit, Ed eventually peeled himself away from them. There were a few warrens that reminded me of some indoor swap meets but with the scale reduced by at least a half. It didn’t take me long to decide that there was nothing of interest there. We walked back to where the bus was to pick us up (there’s no parking available here) and waited for probably 30 minutes with many other long suffering shipmates. Chuck had gone across the boulevard (I say this because it was a large roadway with a grassy median) to get a Starbucks coffee. Eventually the busses arrived and we were taken back to the ship where there were some vendors under canopies there. I looked at some of the stuff, much of which looked more Thai than Malaysian but it’s all pretty much alike at this point.
The city itself is pretty modern with good roads and lots of beautiful greenery in the roundabouts. Many modern hotels line the streets and there are some nice homes. But there are also stick villages on the water that have piles of garbage under them. There is no tax if you live over the water. We were told the garbage comes from the harbor and the city cleans it up periodically but none of us believed that story. The stick village homes were all unsturdy looking and with rusty and unpainted sides. So this is a city with all levels of economics.
Aaaahhhh home again
We didn’t quite fight over who got into the shower first but boy I can tell you we both appreciated it. We also had to send another bag of very wet (perspiration) clothing. I did my hand laundry this evening and I feel like I’m living in a Chinese laundry since I have a hand wash outfit hanging from the a/c outlet.
Six of us were at supper and shared the day’s experiences. Faye and Warrick were on another bus and we ran into each other occasionally but it was interesting to share the info given to us by the guide on the respective busses. Surf and Turf was on the menu and three of us had it. Ed ordered pork ribs and I was really surprised especially after his experience in the local market.
Tonite’s entertainment
A movie: The Men Who Stare at Goats” was offered. It has a good cast but a weird story line and I knew I wouldn’t like it so I never planned on going. Ed said he was going but eventually he didn’t as he didn’t sleep well last night and the heat and humidity just drains you. The locals don’t even break a sweat but they do provide us with lots of free water and remind us regularly to drink it. The Johnny Depp movie “Public Enemy” was on the TV at the same time but we’ve already seen it and it really requires a larger screen to get the most out of it.
Go figure:
In the patter for tomorrow it has an announcement that the shipboard accounts of residents of Australia, Andorra, Brazil and Mexico (only) have been charged with a visa charge of $15.40 USD. Go figure! Wonder why only those countries are charged. Who did they po?
And I thought I’d try to insert a photo since I’m playing with new methods for preparing the blog. We are seeing this kind of vessels everywhere now. People live on them but they must be richer than most.